Leave It All Behind
by nlizzette7
Summary: Chuck reflects on his life with Blair on the day of her funeral. One-shot.


**_My love, leave it all behind. Beat inside me, leave you blind._**

Everything is nothing. And Chuck is empty. He wears black like the others, but he does _not _feel like the others. They crowd around her casket and sniffle and talk and _don't you fucking realize that Blair is gone? Don't you hear me screaming inside?_

They can't hear him.

He refuses to look into the hole, refuses to believe that she'll be inside of it in just an hour. Inside forever. There forever. There, not here. _Therenothere. _

Bile rises to his throat.

She was standing in front of him at this time last week. She was talking and laughing and joking. She was so alive. How did life just go away? There was no time – there was no –

"Mr. Bass, we'll be starting the procession soon."

**_My love, you have found peace. You were searching for release._**

Blair was diagnosed with breast cancer a year and a half ago. The news came like a storm. And after that, it never stopped raining.

It depressed her, you know? Blair was always _so _in control, but this…she couldn't control this. There was a blur of crying and screaming and throwing. She couldn't handle it. It was like she knew her fate all along.

He remembers the night he came home to a hysterical Dorota and the loud crashes in the background.

"Mr. Chuck, please," Dorota insisted, leading him up the stairs. "She will not listen to me." Chuck ducked just in time to miss the arm of a mannequin flying towards his head. Blair's studio was a complete wreck. Fabric was ripped, fluttering through the air. Ripped up sketches spilled over her wastebasket. Everything was destroyed.

Chuck grabbed her wrists, stopping her from breaking the line of photographs on the wall.

"Let me _go_. Let me do this, I need to do this."

"Blair, please. Please stop. Everything you worked for, everything we – "

"Let them fix it when I'm dead," she sobbed, folding into him. They sank to the floor, holding on to each other for dear life. Holding on like it would save them.

Together, they cried.

**_You came thoughtfully, loved me faithfully. You taught me honor. You did it for me._**

"I'm losing my fucking hair," Blair moaned, straight off the chemotherapy. She opened her mouth to say something else, but she leaned over the side of the bed instead – threw up into her bedpan.

Chuck held back her hair.

He had to stop himself from being sick when the strands came loose in his fingers.

"You're beautiful," he whispered. "Hair or no hair."

She shook her head, clutching at her stomach.

"Fuck _off_," she hissed.

And he did. He walked away.

To their bathroom.

And watched as the razor in his shaky hand shaved away every last inch on his head.

**_Now I am strong. You gave me all. You gave all you had, and now I am home._**

This isn't anything like his father's funeral.

No. At his father's funeral, he'd felt numb. He remembered thinking that bad things happened to bad people, so he was never surprised. At his father's funeral he felt nothing.

At Blair's funeral, he feels everything. His heart fucking _aches_. It aches and drops and it is empty. He keeps…he keeps turning around like Blair is going to be standing there. He keeps imagining, _No, of course I'm alive. Take me home, it's getting cold._

It never happens.

This is what does happen:

"Chuck, we're ready for your speech now."

"My…"

"Just say a few words about her, right over here."

They all stare at him. They all wait.

"Blair was…Blair is…You know, Blair would be really pissed right now." Confused glances all around. "She would've said that black was too boring for her funeral. It's probably not in season this year, you know?" Silent laughter. "They say that the best love is the most unexpected one, and that's what Blair and I were. Unexpected. I thought…I thought I was going to be alone for the rest of my life. I thought I had everything figured out, that I was _so _happy. But Blair was happiness. She taught me how to love like a man should. She taught me how it felt to love someone so _completely_ that they become a part of you. And in the end…in the end she made me realize that it was okay to have only two seats at my dining room table. Blair was every member of my family. She _is _my family."

**_You took my hand, added a plan. You gave me your heart. I asked you to dance with me._**

"_Chuck_," Blair insisted, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at her. "I'm serious."

"Blair, I refuse to talk about this."

"It's important to me." Chuck shook his head. Their moments had been fleeting. There she was, trying to convince him to move on before there was anything to move on from.

But they both knew. They both knew what was coming.

"Whatever happens to me…you're _not _going to use it as an excuse to lose yourself. I want you to do everything that we were going to do. By yourself, with someone else, just go out there and do it. You have to promise me that you won't be sad."

"Blair," he'd pleaded, his voice breaking on her name. _Just don't go. Just stay. Just… _"I promise."

**_Tonight, you will sleep for good. You will wait for me my love._**

We're all meant to meet one person who will come into our lives and change it forever. For Chuck, that was Blair.

Alone, he'd been a boy with nothing. With Blair, he was a man who had everything. And now…he'd see her in the flower shop's peonies, in the school girls' headbands, in every Audrey Hepburn movie known to man. She is the whisper of good that will carry him for the rest of his life.

And although his pain is raw, his eyes are wet, and his memory is too sharp, Blair is _there_.

Blair is telling him to survive this.

And he is walking away from the cemetery, but not from her. She's following close behind. And he's telling her that he's ready. That he'll live. He'll live now.

For her.

And he can almost see her lips curl into a smile.

_Are you sure?_

And he is.

**_My love, leave yourself behind. Beat inside me. I'll be with you._**


End file.
